DISCLAIMER: Very rough notes from class, with some additional side notes (QM SHO review, …).

These are notes for the UofT course PHY2403H, Quantum Field Theory I, taught by Prof. Erich Poppitz fall 2018.

Quantization of Field Theory

We are engaging in the “canonical” or Hamiltonian method of quantization. It is also possible to quantize using path integrals, but it is hard to prove that operators are unitary doing so. In fact, the mechanism used to show unitarity from path integrals is often to find the Lagrangian and show that there is a Hilbert space (i.e. using canonical quantization). Canonical quantization essentially demands that the fields obey a commutator relation of the following form
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:20}
\antisymmetric{\pi(\Bx, t)}{\phi(\By, t)} = -i \delta^3(\Bx – \By).
\end{equation}
We assumed that the quantized fields obey the Hamiltonian relations
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:160}
\begin{aligned}
\ddt{\phi} &= i \antisymmetric{H}{\phi} \\
\ddt{\pi} &= i \antisymmetric{H}{\pi}.
\end{aligned}
\end{equation}

We were working with the Hamiltonian density
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:40}
\mathcal{H} =
\inv{2} (\pi(\Bx, t))^2
+
\inv{2} (\spacegrad \phi(\Bx, t))^2
+
\frac{m^2}{2} \phi^2
+
\frac{\lambda}{4} \phi^4,
\end{equation}
which included a mass term \( m \) and a potential term (\(\lambda\)). We will expand all quantities in Taylor series in \( \lambda \) assuming they have a structure such as
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:180}
\begin{aligned}
f(\lambda) =
c_0 \lambda^0
+ c_1 \lambda^1
+ c_2 \lambda^2
+ c_3 \lambda^3
+ \cdots
\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
We will stop this \underline{perturbation theory} approach at \( O(\lambda^2) \), and will ignore functions such as \( e^{-1/\lambda} \).

Discussion

We’ve diagonalized in the Fourier representation for the momentum space fields. For every value of momentum \( \Bp \) we have a quantum SHO.

For our field space we call our space the Fock vacuum and
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:620}
a_\Bp\ket{0} = 0,
\end{equation}
and call \( a_\Bp \) the “annihilation operator”, and
call \( a^\dagger_\Bp \) the “creation operator”.
We say that \( a^\dagger_\Bp \ket{0} \) is the creation of a state of a single particle of momentum \( \Bp \) by \( a^\dagger_\Bp \).

Question:

Is it possible to modify the Lagrangian or Hamiltonian that we start with so that this vacuum ground state is eliminated? Answer: Only by imposing super-symmetric constraints (that pairs this (Bosonic) Hamiltonian to a Fermonic system in a way that there is exact cancellation).

We will see that for a free Maxwell field (no charges or currents) the Hamiltonian is
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture6:760}
H_{\text{Maxwell}} =
\sum_{i = 1}^2
\int \frac{d^3 p}{(2 \pi)^3} \omega_\Bp {a^i}^\dagger_\Bp {a^i}_\Bp,
\end{equation}
where \( i \) is a polarization index.

We expect that we can evaluate an average such as \ref{eqn:qftLecture6:740} for our field, and operate using the analogy

Switching gears: Symmetries.

The question is how to apply the CCR results to moving frames, which is done using Lorentz transformations. Just like we know that the exponential of the Hamiltonian (times time) represents time translations, we will examine symmetries that relate results in different frames.

As we have SHO’s and know how to deal with these in QM, we use the same strategy, introducing raising and lowering operators
\begin{equation}\label{eqn:qftLecture5:600}
\tilde{\phi}(\Bp, t) = \inv{\sqrt{2 \omega_\Bp}} \lr{ e^{-i \omega_\Bp t } a_\Bp + e^{i \omega_\Bp t} a^\dagger_{-\Bp}
}
\end{equation}